By Sean Reilly
Andrew Vasil offered a great lesson to his fellow young baseball players on Sunday afternoon at Diamond Nation.
Vasil, the leadoff batter for the Diamond Jacks Super 13U, struck out in his first three at-bats in the championship game of the 13U A-C King of the Diamond tournament against the North Jersey Heat.
Did he allow himself to feel down after that rough going at the plate? No way.
Instead, he hoped for one more chance, which came in the top of the seventh, and in a very tight spot. The score was tied, there were two out, and runners on first and second.
Vasil had a two ball, two strike count when he followed with an RBI single to right field that drove in the decisive run in a 4-3 victory on freshly-turfed Field 1 in Flemington.
For added measure, Vasil also earned the victory after pitching 2⅔ innings of two-hit, scoreless relief to complete a 5-0 weekend for the DJacks, with a 45-10 run differential.
Nate McGann, Ryan Nigro, Logan Koziupa and Aaron Erb help steer the DJacks Super 13U to the King Of The Diamond championship.
For Vasil, coming through in the late-game clutch was all a matter of maintaining a positive attitude.
“I thought about it, and I felt that I had to do good for my team because they depend on me and I depend on them,” he said. “I did not think about anything in my first few at-bats. I just took a two-strike approach on that pitch and took it into right field.”
In the bottom of the inning, he walked the Heat leadoff batter, Jake Karpell, who stole second and was sacrificed to third by Brian Capreja. With the infield playing in, a comebacker to Vasil resulted in a play at the plate, which led to a rundown between home and third. Vasil ultimately made the tag for the second out.
With the infield now able to play back, and with a runner on second instead of third, Vasil got a three-pitch strikeout to end the game and improve the DJacks to 9-0 on the season. The team also won the Battle At The Turf at ‘The Nation’ on March 23.
“That made me want to dig harder, pitch faster and do better for the team,” Vasil said of the game-closing pitching situation. “It felt like an honor to be standing out there with these boys and winning a championship back-to-back.”
To win this title, the DJacks had to overcome an early 3-0 deficit.
The Heat, which went 3-1 on the weekend, got going in the bottom of the first when Will Vieira singled with one out and next-batter Dean Conway reached on an error. They advanced on a wild pitch before Griffin Vidal hit an RBI single that was compounded by an error to deliver a second run.
Vidal moved to third on a ground out, and scored when Karpell singled to right field on a full count.
The DJacks closed to 3-2 in the top of the second. Tyler LoPresti led off and walked on a full count. After moving to second, he scored on Alan Peña’s double to left field.
Peña moved to third when Logan Koziupa grounded out to shortstop, and he scored on a ball four wild pitch to Oliver Stokes.
The DJacks forged a 3-3 tie in the fourth inning. Ryan Sharma hit a one-out single to center, and moved to third when Joseph LoPresti singled to left field and took second on a throw.
Tyler LaGanga was up next, and had a 2-0 count before hitting a sacrifice fly to right field.
Nathen McGann and Aaron Erb were selected tournament co-MVPs for the Diamond Jacks. McGann went 6-for-12 with seven RBI, while Erb ended the weekend 7-for-15.
But in the end, Vasil (who went 6-for-14 in the five games) delivered the biggest hit and pitched the biggest out.
“The lesson is how no matter what happened earlier in the game, you have to keep moving forward,” he said.